Film Color Issues (tiff)

Hi everyone, first up I am using Negative Lab Pro v2.2 (trial version) and for Scanning I am using the Epson Perfection 4490 photo and the Epson Scan software ( at 1.8 gamma) and the film holder for scanning. For metering I am using my Canon 5D mark II and I have metered for the shadows. For scanning I am using this method Scanning Film Negatives with Epson Scan and Negative Lab Pro . So the problem when I am converting Images, some Images have really weird colors and I tried everything to make it look normal/good but I am not able to and here is a Link with my sample Images and the tiffs were the conversion didn´t worked an were they have worked FIlm Scans (tiff)+Sample Images+how it looks in LR - Google Drive. I also have tried to reinstall LR and the Driver for my scanner but it didn´t made a difference and I also tried color correcting it but also there I was not getting any good results and I also have scanned at 2.2 gamma but also there was no change. But what I have found is that when I change from Frontier to Basic that I was getting a bit better results but still the colors looked weird. I hope that you can help me. Have a nice day :slight_smile:

Hi @Gami and welcome to the forum.

When I look at your “conversion does not work” forest image, I notice the following:

  • The histogram is comparatively narrow, covering approximately 40% of the available tonal range
  • The histogram shows only small differences in the r, g and b curves (after WB), almost like a monochromatic image

The two properties above lead - as far as my experience goes - to conversions that don’t necessarily “pop”. I consider shots like these as difficult, which means that they

  • Require more and more elaborate adjustments in NLP or Lr
  • Don’t necessarily produce “good” conversions, even after a lot of tweaking

I’m still learning NLP: With shots like these - and in case they are worth the effort - I try different settings in Lightroom (mostly crop to exclude burnt skies) and NLP (Pre-Saturation in tab 1 as well as Tones, WB settings and sliders in tab 2) and if all else fails, I live with what I can do - or make the image black and white. Sometimes, expectations must be tuned too! More competent people like @nate can probably do better though.

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Thx @Digitizer I think too that it is a too harsh scene for NLP. But what I have found out Today is when you turn the brightness in LR down to -1,32 than I get a way better result and colors start to apear again. It still doesn´t look nice but I think with a bit of tweaking the Image looks nice again. And here is a link how it looks Negative Lab Pro (-1,32 brightness) - Google Drive . Also for the brightness turned down to -1,32 I used the color mode basic in NLP. Have a nice day :slight_smile:

The new version brings back some of the reds and browns of a typical (autumn) forest floor. I got a similar result, but instead of reducing exposure, I pulled the upper end of the luminance tone curve to the left in order to “pre-spread” the histogram. Specially with “difficult” negatives, some pre-processing can help get you closer to the target. Changing the pre-saturation can help too.

And as always: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there are way more than fifty shades between good and bad…

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Yeah that is absolutly true